As 'TUF 1' cast drifts into retirement, how do we look back properly?

As 'TUF 1' cast drifts into retirement, how do we look back properly?

Watching cast members from the original season of “The Ultimate Fighter” hang up their gloves one by one feels a little like watching the members of your favorite early ’90s band get old and lose their hair.

You knew it had to happen eventually. You knew that the only thing sadder than seeing it happen would be seeing them pretend that it’s not happening. I mean, look at Brett Michaels.

That’s it. Those are the only “TUF 1” competitors still slugging it out in the UFC. Both coaches, Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture, are now retired. Co-host Willa Ford married a hockey player and gradually stopped doing, well, whatever it is she did. Dana White is still Dana White, only richer and not so skinny.

It’s been eight years since that first season aired. It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago, and yet somehow it also feels like another lifetime. The sport has changed a lot since then. Just technique-wise, fighters back then could get away with stuff that would get them knocked cold in today’s UFC. The talent is better, and so is the money. Probably those two things are related.

But now that the fighters who offered themselves up as the test subjects for that early experiment are starting to age out of the sport, how do we put their careers in perspective?

Take Griffin, for example, since he’s the latest to announce his retirement after the UFC president practically dragged him up to microphone at the UFC 160 post-fight press conference. Griffin had a good run. He was, briefly, the UFC light-heavyweight champ. But mostly he’s beloved by White and the UFC for that one great night way back when. Together with Stephan Bonnar, Griffin came through with just the right performance at just the right time, helping to cement the UFC’s place on Spike TV and lighting the fuse that would rocket both the company and the sport to new heights in the years that followed.

That’s the story, anyway. Over time, it seems like that story has veered into Paul Bunyan-esque tall-tale territory. Maybe it’s White’s eager retelling of it, or maybe it’s just the way that the passage of time throws everything into a pleasant sepia glow, but you hear people talk about Griffin-Bonnar I these days, and it’s all hushed, reverent tones. If you didn’t know better, you’d think the sport itself owed its continued existence to that one fight. As if, had that fight not happened when it did, all the fighters and trainers and promoters and TV executives who had invested time, money and energy into this sport by that point would have just thrown up their hands and quit the very next day.

That’s not meant to minimize the importance of that one fight, but one fight doesn’t make a sport. It gave the UFC a great boost, but it’s not responsible for sustaining interest in it all these years later. That’s the work of more than two people on one night eight years ago. We all know that. If we didn’t, we probably wouldn’t still be watching.

What’s tougher to know is how we should think of those “TUF 1” guys now, as they begin shuffling off into retirement. Are Griffin and Bonnar hall of fame material? If so, is it because of what they did over the course of their careers, or is it all because of that one fight? And if it’s just one fight – regardless of how important you think that fight was or wasn’t – does that make sense?

Maybe the question doesn’t really matter all that much. The only MMA-related hall of fame in existence right now is the UFC’s, and that one isn’t exactly interested in outside input. If the UFC wants to give someone a plaque and a framed photo on a wall somewhere in appreciation for what that person did for the company, fine. But doing something great for the company and doing something great in the sport aren’t necessarily the same thing.

It’s nice for the UFC to recognize the people who played important roles in its success. At the same time, you look at how the National Baseball Hall of Fame has treated known steroid users, then look at the UFC’s apparent willingness to completely ignore Bonnar’s performance-enhancing drug problems when sweeping him in among the greats, and you can easily see the potential problems with having a hall of fame that’s so closely associated with the bottom line.

The thing about so many of the “TUF 1” fighters is that it feels like we grew up with them, or like the sport did. We saw them start out as hopeful kids who quit their jobs to take a chance on a new reality show, and we watched them become seasoned professionals, then serious contenders, then grizzled veterans trying to keep their heads above the rising tide. That makes us feel more a part of their journey than we do with most fighters. It makes them feel important to us. There’s something to be said for that. It just seems like it’s worth taking the time to find out what that something should be, rather than letting the company that promoted them decide for us.

ALBANY, N.Y. – MMAjunkie is on scene and reporting live from today’s UFC Fight Night 102 event at Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y., which kicks off at 5:45 p.m. ET (2:45 p.m. PT). You can discuss the event here.

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